"We're back, runt. Get ready to move out," Butcher said as he and the boys flooded into the hideout.
Aldrich noticed it immediately.
Something was wrong.
During his short time with MM, he had found him to be an extremely stable emotional person who felt pity for a misguided human child with a lot of power he shouldn't have.
Frenchie usually felt a pity reserved for a dead dog or a dying pet. But now, in this short while, the output had increased considerably.
The only thing he could think of was that he had done something wrong while "reading" the papers and had exposed his inability to read. It meant they could now guide him around blind with any piece of paper.
"Move out where?" Aldrich finally asked, his voice a flat mask.
Butcher looked at him, acting surprised. "Are you daft? Didn't you just read the dossier I gave you?"
dossier.
"I did. But what I'm asking is... move out where?" Aldrich met his eyes.
"Well, we're going out to do Rufus," Butcher said. He reached down and snatched a random page from the yellow folder, holding it up as if Aldrich could actually see the words. Butcher pointed his thick finger at a random paragraph. "It says here Rufus visits this hospital every Thursday, If we want him, we hit the hospital tonight."
"I see," Aldrich said. "Then let's go."
Even knowing it's a trap, Aldrich is going. Why? Because a trap usually has bait, and even if it isn't Rufus, it's something Vought wants to hide. And anything Vought wants to hide is something Aldrich wants to eat.
Frenchie and mm looked at each other and sighed leaving the hideout.
The Believe Expo was in full swing, but the mood was ruined. It was more somber and tragic than it was ever supposed to be. Fear and uncertainty clouded the mind of everyone present.
Vought's statement had only made things worse. An invasion by a Russian Supe? If this was an invasion, then they had already lost. No one had seen or heard from Homelander since that day.
The only news was that he had recovered and managed to "repel" the Supe after a failed ambush. But even the most die-hard fans found it hard to find any solace in that.
They hadn't seen the repelled attack. What they had seen, on a loop, was the most powerful Supe in the United States of America being crushed in the blink of an eye.
"This is dark times, brothers and sisters."
Father Ezekiel actually meant what he said. He had to stand up there after being blackmailed by some random guy, and the humiliation was eating him alive. Usually, he was the one squeezing people for their last cent for Vought, not the other way around.
What made it worse was that the other party didn't even want his money. He had been forced to spit out his greatest secret, the location of the V at the hospital. He still hadn't recovered from the shock of the blackmail, and his hands were shaking.
"Last night, the American people were attacked! God's chosen people were attacked again! and it will not stop! We ought to have learned by now that the darkness will never stop until it is met by our light!
A low, uneasy murmur rippled through the thousands in the seats, a sound of collective anxiety.
"Look at the screens, brothers and sisters! Look at our champion, our protector, ambushed in the dark by a godless, engineered freak! This isn't just an attack on Vought. This isn't just an attack on a hero. This is a war on your home! This is a war on your children future!"
"No!" a woman screamed from the front row, her voice cracking. "Not the children!" The cry was picked up by others, a growing wave of angry shouts.
"Russia and the godless communists in China, they look at our greatness and they tremble. They know they can't beat our spirit, so they send their monsters to crawl in our oceans and bite at our heels!
They want to drag the American dream into the deep, black water and drown it. They want a world where there is no hope, only the cold, mechanical will of the state!"
Boos filled the air, the sound of a mob turning its fear into a weapon.
"But they forget one thing! We are a nation built on more than just money and oil! We are built on Faith! And while they refine their bio-weapons in their secret labs, we are refining our Resolve!"
The crowd began to rise, a few at first, then hundreds, their applause starting like rain on a tin roof before growing into a thunderous roar.
"Stand up! Do not let fear cloud your hearts! Every cent you give, every prayer you utter, is a bullet in the heart of the godless invaders! We will rebuild our strength! We will heal our champion! And we will show Russia, China, and every other atheist hive that you do not... you cannot... break the people of God!"
The applause turned into a rhythmic chant: "USA! USA! USA!" Ezekiel waited for the fever to peak before he pointed a shaking finger at the screen behind him.
On the screen behind him, two different images appeared. One was the girl from the night the Great Wide Wonder died.
Two different images appeared. One was the girl from the night the Great Wide Wonder died. The other was the boy. In every image, he looked a bit different, but the resemblance was there.
In one, he was a homeless child with a burnt cheek and black hair; in the next, if you looked closely, it was the same face, just without the burn and with golden hair.
The chanting died down instantly, replaced by a heavy, confused silence as they stared at the faces of children.
"Heartbreaking, is it not? Look at them. Homeless, abused, and in need of help," Ezekiel's voice boomed, dripping with fake sympathy. "But brothers and sisters, do not be fooled by the face of a child! The Word warns us that the devourer comes in many forms! What you see up there isn't God's creation... it is the Leviathan! A creature of the salt and the dark, birthed in godless labs!"
He pointed a shaking finger at the screen as the recordings of the Hartford Massacre began to play. The footage was clear and the destruction was undeniable.
Ezekiel paused the video, his face a mask of grief. "Brothers and sisters... you might want to cover your children's eyes. This next part is truly graphic."
The screen flickered to life again.
The crowd watched in a horrified, suffocating silence as the "child" ripped apart the helpless police officers. Then came the worst part: the torture of Supersonic.
The video ended with the arrival of Homelander and the Leviathan's cowardly dive into the sea.
"You see?" Ezekiel whispered into the silence, his voice shaking. "No mercy. No hesitation. Just the cold cruelty of a thing that was never born only manufactured to destroy everything we hold dear. An inversion of everything a Superhero is meant to be."
"The enemy knew they couldn't defeat our champions in a fair fight. No, they are cowards! So they sent a Serpent that looked like a sweet American child, an innocent face designed specifically to ambush Homelander's great, golden heart!
The crowd let out a collective gasp.
"They used our own kindness against us! They waited until his guard was down, then this 'child' revealed its venomous nature, sinking its teeth into our protector's neck like the parasite it is!"
"Kill it!" a man's voice roared from the back, soon joined by others. "Destroy the serpent!"
"These creatures are a hollow thing! A vessel for atheist rage! They have no soul, no spark of the divine, only the cold fire of a Russian laboratory!
"It is an Abomination of Desolation sent to drag our light into the depths! They want you to look at the water and see only the end! But I tell you, these 'Russian' freaks are nothing but shadows that will vanish when we shine the light of our resolve upon it! We will hunt this Leviathan back to the abyss!"
A new picture appeared, showing Homelander dragging Aldrich from the sea.
"We will show the world that you cannot... you will not... betray the chosen people of this land and live to tell the tale!"